The paradox of privacy and security

Public

While privacy and security are a priority for people these days, the things they do to protect themselves may actually undermine it.

With all the spam phone calls, and even text messages, some people have been looking at installing a variety of apps to identify who the caller is. There are quite a few apps for this, but before you leap to installing one take a look at how they work and how it may affect you and your community of contacts in your phone.

Take for example the app Truecaller. This app is available for the Android and iOS and is possibly the most popular app used for caller identification. How does it work to have such a very high level of accuracy?

Learning how Truecaller works will surely raise your eyebrows and might even make you feel worried about what other people are doing on their devices with your information in their list of contacts.

"Well, the working of this application is quite simple. On installation, it asks a few questions relating to the person. It then stores the information in its database.

In this way, Truecaller has a database of all the persons who have installed the application even once.

It also stores the numbers present in the users’ phones who have installed the app. This way, they have gained access to the data of a lot of numbers.

Now, whenever you search phone numbers on the app, it checks in its database and shows the information about the number.

Over the years, Truecaller has accumulated massive data, which makes its information more accurate."

Furthermore:

"Even after the deactivation of an account from Truecaller, it stores the information in the database and hackers can steal sensitive information through the app by breaching the database."

What can we do and what do the people we know do while having our information in their contacts list? Should we use any apps? Is there anything safe? Probably not.

Should we ask our friends and others, please don't add me to the contacts on your smart phone is you are using, or think you might use, an app like Truecaller to identify who is calling?

https://www.theunfolder.com/best-truecaller-alternative-apps/